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Sisters! Sisters!

Sisters! Sisters! image
Parent Issue
Day
18
Month
February
Year
1972
OCR Text

SISTERS! SISTERS!

In Issue 22 and 24 of the Ann Arbor SUN we ran a four part series of articles entitled "Some Myths About Women," taken from Our Bodies Our Selves, a new printing of Women and Their Bodies. Our Bodies Our Selves came from group discussions and individual thought over a period of one year. Sisters who live in and around Boston, wrote the book viewing it as a tool which could be used to increase consciousness and to build our struggle for liberation.

"Some Myths About Women" presented a basic view of women and the roles they play in this society. What we hope to do with the analysis presented here is to bring everything said there closer to the Rainbow Culture. Bring it to sisters and brothers in the collectives, communes and streets here in Ann Arbor. To do this four of the sisters living here at the Rainbow House got together to discuss the article. What I hope to do is present those ideas and thoughts clearly and make them understandable to everyone, open to further criticism of course.

Many of us must feel that the housewife-mother images used as examples in "Some Myths About Women" do not relate to our culture, but Iets take a closer look. One place to start would be at our dealers the people keeping our righteous sacrements in supply and on the streets. Our brothers are usually the dealers, they make the contacts, take care of business, have the knowledge and the skill to survive, all the while keeping themselves and their brothers and sisters high. But, lots of times, the beautiful sisters that are these brothers partners are very often caught in the same ruse as their mothers. Keeping the house clean, cooking and serving food to the brothers, and caring for their children, with the brothers taking little active part. All this meaning the sisters have very little contact with business and what taking care of business means. WE have even known of instances where sister dealers who joined up with brother dealers eventually stopped dealing and fell into the housework ruse. Here at the Rainbow House we have, in the house, broken down these sexual roles. We all share in cooking, cleaning and caring for each other and our three small sisters. Dealing with the physical work, dividing it equally between brothers and sisters is a major step, it means dealing with a very basic and extremly deep rooted thing, which is the beginning of dealing with sexism. When this step takes place it means that sisters come out of the dishwater and diapers to develope and grow, taking on more responisbility, taking care of business unrelated to housework and babies directly. This very new freedom brings about incrediable changes, freeing both brothers and sisters, involving both in more varied work necessary to develope into whole new complete people. Brothers are able to get closer to children, slow down and relate to their emotions, something which is smothered in our brothers while dealing with growing up in Amerikan culture. They are able to see what spaces their sisters were relating to, they are able to see where sisters are coming from. It's so beautiful to see our brothers getting out of their heads, relating to things on a more human, less dominating ego oriented, honky level. Realizing the needs of people, realizing the understanding it takes to care for each other, and help us grow. And our sisters! Being freed from relating to things on a cooking pot, dirty dish level, having our lives not just center, merely, around our brothers and children but also to learning skills, working and using our creativeness. Being able to develope a view of our sisters on a comradely level and not as threats to our relationships with brothers.

Here, at the Rainbow House, we are constantly struggling with our sexism, trying to define and grow out of all the sexist bullshit built inside of us. We have gone through incrediable changes just dealing with the basics, like equally dividing the work needed to run the house smoothly. A lot of our brothers reacted very negatively to having to care for our children, cook food for everyone, and do the huge amount of cleaning necessary to keep our house together. The changes are slow and very confusing, and we have made a lot of mistakes, but every day the equality becomes more of a reality. We sisters take on more responsibility and gain more skills that generally only the brothers had, but we must remember where the Rainbow Culture as a whole is growing from in order to deal with our own sexism effectively. Our culture, with all the beautiful, progressive things about it is still filled with sexism and the oppression that results from it. Even our rock 'n roll music is fiIled with this bullshit, the lyrics, the way brothers who are musicians relate to sisters, the lack of sisters who are musicians and, of course, the way sisters relate to rock 'n roll musicians. But, very positive changes are happening on the rock n' roll scene. Take for example the rock'n roll band named Joy of Cooking, with sisters playing lead guitar, organ and playing a major role in writing songs. We all must realize that sexist feelings go to the very center and that to deal with it we have to go to the very center and realize that we are all sexist and begin to deal with it. This is the first step, realizing, and defining the problem and then taking steps to correct it, such as equalizing the house work load, discussing sexism and discovering its origins in history, with your sisters and brothers and then struggling to overcome it. We are developing a whole new Rainbow Culture that breaks down artifical separations like racism and sexism and we have to develop whole new ways to relate to each other. The struggle ahead of us in terms of opposition from the existing social and economic order demands that we all participate fully. Sexism is a major contradiction and we all must struggle to overcome it!

All Power to the Rainbow Culture!

Sisters and Brothers Unite!

No One Is Free Until We All Are Free!

- Kathy Kelley RPP

Photo: David Fenton